This section provides background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the invention. It should be understood that the statements in this section of this document are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
It is often desirable to have a secondary means of manually operating a lift or elevator. In most cases, this manual operation is required to meet national safety codes in Canada and the United States. Safe and convenient access to operate these devices can be difficult to achieve. This is particularly true for belt and screw drive elevators or lifts as the screw and motor shaft axis are mounted vertically. In many circumstances, accessing the emergency movement device is achieved by removing cover panels to gain access to the drive and reaching over the tower or standing on the lift platform to manually activate the emergency movement device. For tall tower lifts and elevators, this procedure is often difficult, resulting in the need for an expensive access panel cut into the tower support wall.